I received this book on Saturday and finished it Sunday . An excellent, detailed account on life in a Puerto Rican Hacienda. Wonderful illustrations of people of the time and details of sophisticated equipment used in those time. A true picture of how life was then. My grandfather was a farmer and worked on a plantation so this gives light to some of the stories he told me about. An excellent books for anyone that wants to know about their roots and is especially interested in the Ponce area although this was probably typical of all plantations. A must read!!!

If your really into history Colonial days you should really put your hands on this one. It takes you on a drive full of feeling to that era. Im Italian and it made me recall my grandparents village in Palermo... I give Gullermo A. Baralt an A+

(From Planeta journal): This new English-language translation of an established Caribbean classic traces the history of the Buena Vista estate in the foothills of Puerto Rico's central mountain range. Now a living history museum, Buena Vista gained its initial success producing food for the town of Ponce, proving that raising crops for local consumption could be as profitable as sugar or coffee for export. The text spans almost a century -- a time in which slavery ended and technology expanded at a phenomenal rate. This is an exceptional book, one that any visitor to Puerto Rico should read before making an obligatory visit to the island's Living Museum of Art and Science.

In "Farwell to the Sea," Arenas continues his Pentagonia series by departing from the hallucinatory violence presented in the first two books ("Singing from the Well" and "Palace of the White Skunks") and entering the minds of a young married couple spending a week by the sea. Divided in two parts, the first part is the stream-of-consciousness narrative by the unnamed woman who resents her baby, fears losing her husband, and who feels helpless to cope with the communist society in Cuba. She aches for her husband's love, yet is suspicious of his infidelity, particularly when a handsome and taciturn teen-aged boy arrives with his loquacious mother and moves into the cottage next to theirs. Her dreams are mixed into her daily conscious narrative and reveal her anxiety, torment and fears. In one dream with sexual connotations, she sees visions of Greek warriors slaughtering each other in a violent orgy-like battle. And in another vivid rendition of the ubiquitous cue of the communist life, Cubans stand morosely in line while soldiers standy nearby, gunning down anyone that dares defies them or attempts to alter the cue.

The second part is from the husband's, Hector, perspective, but it's primarily told in poetic form and involves often allegorical portrayals of how he sees Cuban life and his own. His resentment underscores much of his tale, even his attraction to the boy next door, which becomes a central conflict during his stay. He longs for the boy and to freely express his homosexuality, yet feels the omnipresent oppression of the communist system as it systematically stifles all that is human. Perhaps one of the most poignant passages is the following poem in which Hector expresses what the communist system has done to his and everyone else's humanity: "You are no longer a man who calls things by their name -- you blaspheme. You are no longer a man who laughs -- you jeer. You are no longer a man who hopes -- you mistrust. You are no longer a man who loves -- you accept. You are no longer a man who dreams aloud -- you are silent. You no longer sleep and dream -- you are sleepless. You are no longer one who is wont to believe -- you consent. You are no longer a seeker -- you hide." And then he adds the line (not 30 yet) to signify how communism has jaded him and turned him into a hopeless cynic while still a young man.

Beautifully written, and a tale that will bear repeated readings.

A young Cuban couple gain permission to spend a week at a beach resort. They spend most of their time sitting by the ocean, silent in private thought. We get inside her head for the 7 days and then into his, receiving different perspectives and views on the vacation, and on their current lives. Arenas does a fantastic job of expressing both her and his frustrations at their station in life, and in the freedom they feel has deserted them. She laments the burden of motherhood and the loss of her personal sense of self. He laments his loss of freedom as the Castro government clamps harder down on writers and artists. Also, driving his frustration is his own frustration as a closet homosexual in a straight, macho world. Arenas does not overtly state his themes, but reveals them like one peeling an onion. There is layer after layer to discover.. and the underlying themes of the novel come across through reverie and daydreams.. hallucinations of the young couple as they stare at the water. It is this non-linear dual-narrative style of writing that is so effective as through their private thoughts, we start to understand the true essence of the lives of this young, but jaded young couple.

Hopefully the successful audience response to the film of Arenas' "Before Night Falls" will encourage readers to explore the unique and vastly enriching glimpses of Castro's (or any dictator's for that matter) Cuba. The author's style is indelibly his own, reporting and commenting on the conditions of political supression, whether he elects to satirize in the first person/s as in "Color of Summer" with its over the edge surreal view of contemporary Cuba, or placing the narrator from within as in "The Assault". Truth, as he viewed it, is so ludicrous that it becomes black comedy, not unlike Goya's "Goyescas". But for all the unsettling details of this tale of destruction of all that matters in our past, this book, once read burns a spot in our minds that makes it almost necessary to revisit it lest we forget the joy of freedom. Tough reading, but highly recommended.

In this, the second book of five about revolutionary Cuba, Arenas brings us into the city to continue on the life of Fortunato, the boy narrator introduced in Singing from the Well. Fortunato is older now, and the narrative reflects this maturity by following a more chronological format. But his torment, misery and anger is no less. Always in the background is the gunfire of the reveloution which captivates Fortunato and eventually ensnares him.

While less difficult than Singing from the Well, The Palace of the White Skunks is still no easy read. Yet both books are extraordinary. Anyone interested in reading Latin American authors must include Arenas.

Jorge Borges, (1899-1986) was born in Beunos Aires and educated in Geneva, and was a prominent figure in the avant-garde Ultraist movement in the late teens and early 1920's. This book, a slim and highly cerebral volume which uses a theoretical library as a metaphor for the universe, with each volume a soul, each shelf an ideal, and perhaps curated by The Divine Ethereal, is a magnificent tour-de-force, yes, but is also highly accessible and certainly a viable choice for those of you who are new to Borges. His other fictional and non-fictional work can be very meaty and sometimes too complex. This particular edition, illustrated with gorgeous plates by the Moroccan printmaker Erik Desmazieres, is a marvelous addition to any serious library.

"The Library of Babel" is one of Borges' finest short fictions -- a meditation on the possible, the infinite, the nature of hope and the creation of meaning. The Library contains all possible books, all possible combinations of the 25 orthographic symbols in all possible languages, and therefore everything man is capable of knowing and expressing -- but it appears to have no order, no organization. It contains the true catalogue of the Library, as well as innumerable false catalogues, books proving the falsity of the false catalogue, and books proving the falsity of the true catalogue. Yet from chaos arises meaning: "There is no combination of characters one can make . . . that the divine Library has not foreseen and that in one or more of its secret tongues does not hide a terrible significance. There is no syllable one can speak that is not filled with tenderness and terror, that is not, in one of those languages, the mighty name of a god." (35)

This volume is intended for the lover of fine books and contains "only" this single, quite short, fantasy by Borges, beautifully illustrated with duotone etchings by Erik Desmazieres. The etchings are not particularly consistent with Borges' description of the Library, although they are plainly inspired by it. Although Desmazieres' Library appears to be physically bounded in a way that Borges' Library is not (there is no "outside" for Borges), the etchings present a magisterial universe that by the overwhelming size and fine detail of its rooms evokes a sense of the infinite in the same way that High Gothic cathedrals function. My only real quarrel with Desmazieres is that his Library is too populated. He captures the sense of infinite space, but misses the fundamental loneliness of the librarian.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in fine printing or as an addition to an existing collection of Borges' fiction. If you are new to Borges, I would recommend buying a more substantial collection of his work first, then buying this volume as a beautifully realized vision of one aspect of his universe.

This unique compelling story is beautifully supported by the remarkable illustrations. Borges in any format is worth time and reflection as he leads you through his wonderful labyrinths.

El Aleph es un libro bastante interesante, recopilación de 18 breves narraciones, muy analíticas. Borges, nos muestra la variedad de su pensamiento y de sus ideas;nos enséña la mitología, la religión, la conciencia, la historia universal enfocada en los siglos mas remotos, la muerte, y en la última de sus narraciones, la que le da el nombre al libro, "El Aleph", término desconocido para mi hasta entonces, exposición de un mensaje filosófico muy complejo desde el punto de su vivencia personal. Para todos los que desean conocer la obra de Borges, este libro puede ser un buen comienzo para tener la noción de sus escritos.

creo que las palabras no bastan para describir la hermosa sensacion de perfeccion en esta pequena gran obra de Borges, lo mejor sera ser breve como sus cuentos, son pequenas piezas de erudiccion, entretenidas, profundas, dramaticas. quien iba a pensar que el universo se podia ver mejor desde un sotano? en realidad me sorprendio con cada cuento y esa palabra, laberinto que puebla sus cuentos, laberintos para protegerse, para observar, laberintos para hombrese inmortales. no hay nada que pueda decir para aumentar su grandeza, lo mejor que puedo hacer es recomendar que cada uno la lea ,la atesore y la disfrute a plenitud.. LUIS MENDEZ

Cuando uno descubre a un escritor como Borges se arrepiente del tiempo perdido divagando en la literatura, intentando encontrar un libro que te haga retener el aire en cada párrafo leído para finalizarlo con una exhalación de complacencia. Borges es de los personajes al que muchos de nosotros debemos agradecerles esa bendita adicción a la lectura.

Jorge Luis Borges juega con sus lectores, especialmente con aquellos -y me considero uno de ellos- que olvidan que están leyendo cuentos fantásticos y tratamos de encontrar alguna relación con nuestro mundo real o buscamos simbolismos que no existen. Esto se debe a que este escritor tiene la facilidad de sumergirnos en cada una de sus historias haciéndonos partícipes de sus invenciones y logrando abstraernos de nuestra realidad.

El Aleph reúne una serie de cuentos cuyos episodios se desarrollan en "dimensiones paralelas" a la nuestra -por decirlo de algún modo -. Dimensiones habitadas por seres inmortales que mueren dos veces y pueden recorrer el mundo a través de un punto ubicado en un lugar secreto de una vivienda en vísperas de ser derruida. No hay un cuento que podamos considerarlo como el mejor; cada uno de ellos tiene un encanto especial desarrollado en un tiempo desconocido y en un mundo irreal.

If the famous altarpiece of Hieronymous Bosch , similarly titled the Garden of Earthly Delights, could become words, those words would probably read much like Reinaldo Arenas' last volume. As with any fine writer (and make no bones about it, Arenas is one of the best of the Latin writers), the act of drawing an audience into a book is part enjoyment but also part labor. Plan on working to catch all the subtle metaphors and references as well as the obvious in-your-face slapstick that flows continously from these pages.

Arenas' bifurcated feelings about his native Cuba are well know to the readers of his other novels: Cuba he adores - Castro he loathes. And as the author was dying from AIDS in the US he was able to concentrate all of his ambiguous responses to his native homeland into a grand guignol carnival Farewell Party. The precis for the story is the preparation for the celebration of Fifo's (thinly disguised name for Fidel Castro) "50th" anniversary of dictatorship. Arenas very cleverly separates his personality into three faces - Gabriel, Reinaldo, and Skunk in a Funk - in order to give us the many facets of view of living in Cuba now and before Castro. His characters are hilariously drawn campy creatures in an endless pursuit of earthly delights (aka gay sex) and if the interchange of gender pronouns (him/her) at times gets a bit overused, the premise is sound and keeps the stew bubbling. Even the atrocities attributed to "Fifo" are handled in sure polished slapstick that we are drawn more to laughter than to loathing. Cuba is finally liberated by being separated from its mooring to the sea floor to float out blissfully toward Europe..or....

Arenas was a brilliant writer who died too young, but as this final translation of his output proves, his was a significant voice not only as a gay writer, but as a revolutionary thinker under the duress of loss of freedom that still plagues Cuba. Highly recommended book....just plan to work some and to take your time.......

Wow! I just finished reading "The Color Of Summer" by the late Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas--and what a challenge it is for me to describe or assess this extraordinary work of fiction. It seems to be a hybrid of memoir, satire, and wild, hallucinatory magical realism. Maybe I should de-emphasize the term "realism." Historical events are exaggerated or transmogrified by the author--often with hilarious and irreverent results. The relentless pursuit of pleasure is constantly at odds with the pursuit of power. In one chapter entitled "The Garden Of Computers" Arenas brilliantly satirizes the bureaucracy of informants. "...denunciations, backstabbings, and betrayals of friendship were the nourishment the machines lived on." This is as brilliant as anything Dickens ever wrote about corrupt institutions. Other authors that came to mind as I read "The Color Of Summer" were Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, William Burroughs and, especially, Salman Rushdie. The amazing word-play in this book(in which 30 tongue twisters are interspersed)is delightful. Credit for this must surely be shared by the English translator Andrew Hurley. Sex(especially gay sex)is an obsession with most of the characters in this book-including the central tyrant Fifo(Castro). This is not a book for the timid or prudish. However, underneath it all there is a powerful affimation of the human spirit. Arenas expresses profound sadness, frustration, and anger--which cuts right through all the raucous humor. But, more than that, he imparts a sense of real joy through his characters' acts of defiance and creativity. I thoroughly recommend this book. A masterpiece.

The translation of this work is amazing - no way would you know that this delightful queen, Arenas, didn't originally write this in wickedly idiomatic English. He had to write this story, what?, seven times? It was confiscated, stolen, and lost over and over. And he re-wrote it over and over, until he could escape to freedom and finally see it in print. The story is a scream of queer humor atop the most tragic background of brutal state repression. Yet, in a way that only imprisoned Cubans seem to know how to do, his pride and dignity survive.

I am gratified to learn that this book is soon to be released in paperback. I read the hardback version about 13 years ago, and it was a very moving experience. This man's story constitutes an indictment of Castro's regime very similar to Solzhenitsyn's indictment of Soviet Russia in The Gulag Archipelago. There was no right to trial, just imprisonment on the word of an unknown informant. In many ways, the treatment of the Cuban prisoners was more cruel than the Gulag, because Castro did not have the aid of a harsh climate to kill his enemies. I will never forget reading that two groups as disparate as homosexuals and Seventh-Day Adventists were both alike consigned by Castro to his prison camps.

The recent Elian Gonzales controversy, although a very complex and tragic situation, revealed that most Americans have no real grasp of the nature of Castro and his regime. I wish this book were required reading for all Americans.

This is a must read if you want to understand more about Cuba and it's political prisoners. This book is not only a page turner but it is full of hope and inspiration. A true testament to the power of the human spirit. Get it, read it, and learn more about how Castro runs his jails.

Armando Valladeres, a man not many people have heard of, wrote this account of the acute sufferings in Cuban prison camps during a period of history that can only be described as without hope. The story that is told, is a story of one man's release from solitary confinememt and the worst immaginable conditions a man could ever endure. From the very first page, the reader is posed a moral question: Is this one man's struggle against an oppressive regime or is it man's srtruggle against brutality,torture and hatred? This is a book to remember. This is a story which God revealed to Castro and the world. This is a book which remains engraved on my heart and soul. It is a book to rest on your bookshelf alongside "Papillon" and Primo Levi's "If this is a man". Viva Valladeres! Viva la Libertad!

As is so often the case, there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is obvious: all of Borges' fiction collected into one beautiful volume. These short stories, parables, and other writings explore the nature of literature, identity, and existence itself in a style that is simultaneously mundane and fantastic. The bad news is the extent to which that style is buried in the new translation. I have read many pieces by Borges translated by many different translators, and all shared a common, instantly identifiable voice that transcended the translation. Hurley's translations are in every case inferior. They are overly wordy and do not capture the dry, succint language that somehow heightens the imaginative power of the stories. One must still give this book a high rating, as these are very important pieces of fiction, and their ideas still shine through, but a better translation would have guaranteed five stars. My recommendation: if you have not yet read any Borges, start with one of the other, smaller volumes (e.g., Fictions, Labyrinths). If you are fond of his writing already and want to have it all in one volume, glance through this book in a bookstore and see for yourself whether you can live with this translation.

Jorge Luis Borges is without a doubt one of the world's best writers of short fiction. I have read this translation, as well as one other and the original Spanish. Andrew Hurley's translation recreates superbly the magic of Borges. It is by far the superior of the two translations that I have read: not bogged down in excess verbiage or diction unbefitting Borges's style. I give this book my highest approval, have read most of the stories half a dozen times now, and would recomend it to anyone who enjoys the finest literature. Five stars.

Let me start by saying that I don't know the Spanish language, and am not able to judge the translation. What I can say is that I have read translations in two other languages and one other one in English and don't consider this in any way the inferior one. What is most important, is that this one volume offers what may be the ultimate collection of short stories. I has been said of Beethoven's fifth Symphony that seldom so much has been said with so few notes. Well, many of the stories in this volume surpass good old Ludwig by far. Philosophers, scientist, journalists, all of them need endless pages to convey those concepts, that require not more than a few of Borges' lines. Cantor may be seen as the person that allowed mankind to come to grips with infinity, but Borges is the one to describe it most vividly. Buy it. Read it, and keep rereading it to the end of your time.

This is essentially a book of social history, although it brings together the disciplines of economic history, gender studies, architecture, and popular culture. Hurley discusses how diners, bowling alleys, and trailer parks reflected the social values of the 1950s and 1960s. The chapters on the three building types go into excruciating detail; for example, every nuance of diner design and operation is discussed and scrutinized for meaning. The book would have been improved if the author had covered more building types in the same number of pages.

Hurley's overriding theme is laudable: On the outskirts of most towns, there is a region that constituted that community's "commercial strip" during the 1950s and 1960s, before America discovered fast food, shopping malls, and big-box stores. Most of us drive through these past-their-prime commercial strips every day, seeing nothing but obsolete buildings. Hurley points out that these obsolete commercial strips are the equivalent of archeological sites, speaking volumes about how family values have evolved during the past half-century.

Hurley offers an insightful, thought-provoking, and at times disturbing picture of three emblematic popular institutions of post-war America. While all came out of working class roots and emerged as popular features in the wider popular culture of the 1950s, each industry found different ways to negotiate its relationship with its working class roots and its aspiration for access to a wider mass market. Hurley shows how working class Americans, emerging from the economic trauma of poverty and the Great Depression, sought through consumer culture to redefine themselves as middle class, even as middle class Americans often created new kinds of fashion snobbery as a way of redefining the new aspiring working class/middle class as crass or vulgar.

Hurley explores the emergence of the new mass market that emergence with relative working class affluence after the Second World War, while properly noting the limitations of that affluence. He also explores how this new mass consumer market, shaped by advertising constructs of domesticity and family togetherness, both limited, and even excluded women and minorities (especially African-Americans, who continued to be the target of the most vigorous economic discrimination and exclusion) through the 1960s and 1970s, even as the mass market ideal was crumbling under new challenges generated during the 1960s that sprang from many of the impulses unleased by American consumerism itself.

This is a fascinating and indeed entertaining work. Yoy can learn a lot about the social and cultural history of diners, bowling alleys, and trailer parks, but beyond that, you can get a valuable insight into some of the larger forces that have shaped who we are as Americans, both for better and for worse.